Abstract

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it aims to delve into the influence of contextual discursive factors in determining the type of evidential chosen and the pragmatic functions developed by evidentials in Spanish parliamentary discourse; second, it shows how evidentials can also provide useful new insight on the genre. A corpus study has been carried out studying the Spanish evidential discourse marker al parecer in parliamentary debates. The analysis shows how real examples of al parecer hardly fit any category of evidentials posited previously; data also illustrates how factors such as the discursive role or the part of the parliamentary process do affect the meaning of al parecer and change the pragmatic nuances conveyed by the discourse marker.

. In press. “On the dynamicity of evidential scales. Pragmatic indirectness in evidentiality as a rhetorical strategy in academic and political discourse”. InEvidentiality in Spanish: Explorations across Genres ed. by Carolina Figuera Bates and Adrián Cabedo-Nebot . Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

2015 “Evidential al parecer: Between the physical and the cognitive meaning in Spanish scientific prose of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries” Journal of Pragmatics85: 155–167.10.1016/j.pragma.2015.03.021

2008 “Toward a unified theory of politeness, impoliteness and rudeness”. InImpoliteness in language: Studies on its interplay with power in theory and practice, ed. by Derek Bousfield and Miriam A. Locher , 45–78. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

2010 “Hearsay in European languages: toward an interactive account of grammatical and lexical marking”. InLinguistic Realization of Evidentiality in European Languages, ed. by Gabriele Diewald and Elena Smirnova , 59–129. Berlin: De Gruyter.